Chương 1
""The little girl was already screaming for her grandfather when Evelyn Mercer pointed at the doll facedown in the mud and told her to go get it herself.
Three-year-old Lily stood at the edge of the muddy patch in her pink dress, both fists clenched beneath her chin, tears running unchecked over her cheeks.
Her yellow-haired doll lay several feet beyond the stone path, one plastic arm buried in brown water.
“I don’t want her dirty,” Lily sobbed.
“Then you should have taken care of her,” Evelyn said.
At sixty-five, Evelyn could make an ordinary sentence sound like a judgment handed down from a bench.
Her dark wool coat was too expensive for gardening, her polished shoes too clean for the damp backyard, and she had spent the morning complaining that children were allowed to become careless because adults were afraid to upset them.
Lily looked toward the house.
The sliding door was closed.
Her mother, Anna, had left twenty minutes earlier to pick up medicine from the pharmacy, after Evelyn had promised that watching Lily until she returned would be no trouble.
Lily had not dropped the doll in the mud.
Daniel had.
Evelyn’s thirty-eight-year-old son stood beside the garden bench with his hands in his pockets, wearing the irritated expression of a man who believed every inconvenience had been personally designed for him.
“Mom, she’s just going to keep screaming,” he said.
“She’ll stop when she learns.”
Lily tried to step toward the doll, but the toe of her little white shoe touched the mud and she recoiled.
Evelyn pointed again.
“Go.”
Daniel gave a short laugh.
Then, before Lily could move, he put the side of his shoe against the doll and kicked it.
The doll slid through the mud, rolled once, and stopped near the wooden fence.
Lily stared at him.
For half a second she made no sound at all.
Then her face folded.
“GRANDPA!”
The cry carried over the fence and into the narrow lane behind the property.
Daniel winced.
“Jesus.”
“Don’t swear in front of her,” Evelyn said.
“That’s what you’re worried about?”
The iron latch on the backyard gate moved.
Daniel turned first.
The gate opened inward, scraping lightly across the stone.
Frank Stallone stepped through wearing a white open-collar shirt beneath a black jacket, with black trousers and shoes that immediately picked up dirt from the damp path.
He was seventy and moved more slowly than he once had, but nobody looking at him would have mistaken slowness for uncertainty.
Two men in black suits entered behind him.
Neither spoke.
Frank had come because Anna had called him from her car.
She had not sounded frightened.
She had sounded embarrassed.
That bothered him more.
“Dad, could you swing by the house?”
Then a pause.
“My mother-in-law is there.”
Another pause.
“And Daniel.”
Frank had known enough to change direction.
He had not known enough to expect Lily’s scream.
Now he stopped just inside the gate.
His eyes went first to Lily.
Then to the muddy doll.
Then to Daniel’s shoe.
Then to Evelyn.
Nobody explained anything immediately.
That silence lasted perhaps two seconds, but Daniel filled it with nervous movement, pulling one hand from his pocket and rubbing his mouth.
Lily ran.
“Grandpa!”
Frank bent as she reached him, and she collided with his legs hard enough to make him shift one foot backward.
He put a hand behind her head.
“What happened?”
“She has to learn to take care of things,” Evelyn said.
Frank kept looking at Lily.
The child tried to answer, but crying had reduced her words to fragments.
“My baby—mud—and Uncle Danny—”
“I heard you.”
He crouched.
Her pink dress was clean except for two damp marks near the hem.
“You hurt anywhere?”
Lily shook her head.
Frank glanced at the mud.
“You went in there?”
Another shake.
“Okay.”
Evelyn exhaled through her nose.
“For heaven’s sake, Frank, nobody hurt her.”
He rose.
Lily caught his jacket with both hands.
Evelyn continued before he could answer.
“She threw a tantrum because her toy got dirty.”
Daniel looked at his mother.
Frank noticed.
That small look told him more than Evelyn’s explanation had.
“Did she put it there?” Frank asked.
Daniel shrugged.
“It’s a doll.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“Oh, come on.”
Frank took Lily’s hand and walked toward the muddy patch.
The bodyguards remained near the gate.
Neither approached Daniel.
Neither needed to.
Frank stopped beside the bench.
“Lily says Danny put it there.”
“She’s three,” Evelyn said.
“Daniel?”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“I kicked it.”
“Why?”
“She was carrying on.”
“So you kicked it farther away.”
Daniel gave another shrug, but this one was smaller.
Frank stared at him until Daniel looked toward the fence.
Evelyn stepped between them.
“You are not coming into my daughter-in-law’s home and interrogating my son.”
“It’s my daughter’s home too.”
“And apparently that means you can bring hired muscle into the backyard like some ridiculous movie.”
One of the bodyguards looked down.
Frank almost smiled.
Almost.
Then Lily made a small choking sound behind him.
Evelyn heard it and pointed toward the child without turning.
“This is exactly what Anna does.”
Frank’s expression changed.
“She rewards every tear.”
“Stop.”
“No, somebody needs to say it.”
“Evelyn.”
“She’s raising a child who thinks crying makes adults obey.”
Frank moved closer.
Evelyn held her ground.
“She needs discipline,” she said.
“She needs adults who don’t torment her for entertainment.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“Watch yourself.”
Frank looked past Evelyn at him.
“Stay where you are.”
“Or what?”
The question landed differently than Daniel intended.
Frank’s shoulders settled.
One of the bodyguards quietly moved half a step away from the gate.
Evelyn lifted a hand toward Frank’s chest.
“You don’t order my family around.”
Frank caught her wrist before she touched him and released it immediately.
“Don’t.”
Evelyn’s face flushed.
“You think money and those men make you frightening?”
“No.”
May you like
“Then what exactly do you think you’re doing?”
“Finding out what happened before Anna gets back.”
